The ultimate electric SUV that won’t be built

We all know Dyson for its best in class vacuum cleaners and Tesla for making electric cars and the underlying infrastructure successful but did you know, Dyson was also working on an electric-SUV? Recently, Sir James Dyson who is the UK’s richest man and founder of Dyson Ltd revealed that there was an electric SUV that was in development at Dyson and he invested his own 500 million pounds of his own money in the development which roughly translates to ₹7,125 crores in Indian currency.

The car was internally called “N526” probably because it was 5 meters long and weighed 2.6 tonnes. It could fit up to 7 people and hit a top speed of 125mph. The SUV was capable of hitting a ton in just 4.8 seconds and it was 1.7-meters tall and 2-metres wide in dimensions.

But the highlight of Dyson SUV was its range Currently, the best EV range is Tesla, specifically, the Model X which is an SUV has a range of 314 miles, and the Model S which is a sports sedan has a range of 379 miles. According to Dyson, the SUV that was in development could hit a range of 600-miles on a single charge.

This was achieved due to patented solid-state batteries which could run the SUV on its full performance even in freezing temperatures of February that too with heater and the radio on full blast. Dyson’s electric SUV would produce 536bhp of max power and a peak torque of 650Nm. The power was drawn from two 200kW electric motors and according to the people who have seen the prototypes, they describe the electric car as a Sporty SUV.

The interior of the SUV was also quite futuristic. There is not much information available about it but what we do we know is that the dashboard was supposed to float in front of you using holograms. So, a lot of heads-up displays were used for the dashboard design.

So why was it canceled if it was so good?

Even after being patented in mid-2019 which clearly showed the shape and the design of the SUV, it never made it to production. This happened because the car wouldn’t have been feasible for the general public and the manufacturer itself. So much development cost and expensive parts had gone under that only to break-even the cost, Dyson had to sell one car for more than $181,000 which is a lot of money for a Dyson SUV. For this amount of money, you could get yourself a 2019 Porsche 911 GT3 RS or a standard 2019 Porsche 911 GT3 for around $143,000. Even after so much money, Dyson would not have made any profit and after already investing $605,000, it just didn’t make sense to continue with the project.

Dyson has shared with the media that they are open and will share their solid-state batteries with automotive companies if some opportunity arises. We can only hope that one day this electric SUV comes to life.